Anglicans still marking Easter despite lockdown

New ways of connecting: Queenstown’s Anglican vicar Reverend David Wright

By PHILIP CHANDLER

Despite ‘sadness that his parish churches, like all others, are closed during this most important week in the Christian calendar, a Queenstown minister says his congregation’s never been more connected.

Anglican vicar Reverend Dr David Wright notes that due to New Zealand’s Covid-19-induced lockdown, this will be the first Easter that churches in Christendom have been closed since 1208.

That’s when Pope Innocent III was locked in a bitter dispute with King John over who should be England’s next Archbishop.

The current closure means, for example, that all Holy Week Anglican services at Queenstown’s St Peter’s, Arrowtown’s St Paul’s and at Glenorchy have been cancelled, along with Good Friday’s ‘Ecumenical Walk of the Cross’.